While there are those who undoubtedly are rejoicing over the resignation of U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun, the proper response to this news should be sadness.

Sadness over the awful sex abuse scandals that have befallen the U.S. Olympic world in two of its most popular and successful sports, gymnastics and swimming.

Sadness that our culture — not just leaders of the USOC, but all of us — has been so slow to react to protect our children from these horrors of youth sports.

Sadness that Blackmun, 60, a man who brought internal change and international respect to the USOC over the past eight years, has decided to leave due to ongoing health issues resulting from his recent surgery for prostate cancer.

Had Blackmun been healthy, he quite possibly could still be on the job today, leading an embattled organization through its most trying times. Would that have been wise? Would he have lasted? Would he have been able to exact reforms from within as he was being battered by the outside world, including two U.S. senators calling for his resignation?

These are questions that will never be answered, but they are questions that should not be ignored. It will be popular to say that Blackmun was forced out due to the burgeoning sex abuse scandals in gymnastics and swimming. But it will not be correct.

“In a perfect world, Scott might have decided he wanted to continue to try to work on these important issues,” USOC board chairman Larry Probst said in a phone interview Wednesday. “It breaks my heart to see him leaving at this time. But he and we know we need a CEO 24-7 in these challenging times.”

This is a substantial loss for the USOC. Blackmun mended long-broken fences within the powerful International Olympic Committee to lay the groundwork so that the U.S. could host another Olympic Games – the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. He took one of the oldest of the old boy organizations and brought more than a half-dozen women into senior leadership, including the USOC's chief financial officer and the heads of human resources and security.

He and I spoke at length several times over the past few years about the need to bring more women and minorities into sports leadership, especially the USOC with its predominance of female sports stars. Blackmun certainly didn’t need any persuading.

In fact, it will be Susanne Lyons, a current USOC board member, who will serve as acting CEO, overseeing the USOC’s day-to-day operations while a search for a permanent successor takes place.

As the horrible Larry Nassar scandal overtook the U.S. Olympic movement, Blackmun issued apologies and vowed that the USOC would change. An ongoing independent investigation, commissioned by Blackmun, is expected to offer answers about what he and other leaders knew about the sexual assaults of more than 160 gymnasts. Concurrently, the Orange County Register recently reported on allegations of the abuse of hundreds of American swimmers, another devastating blow to the U.S. Olympic community.

Blackmun has never been one to mince words or avoid questions about tough issues. In a 2017 Colorado Springs Gazette column about the gymnastics scandal and the USOC’s launch of the U.S. Center for Safe Sport, he wrote:

“Could we do more? Always. Should we have begun acting before 2010? I wish we had. But to suggest that the USOC is not diligently and effectively working to solve this problem is unfair to the USOC and misleading to the American public.”

Had Blackmun not been battling cancer, his reign at the top of the USOC might have ended sooner rather than later anyway. As we are seeing, few leaders – in sports, in academics, in business – end up surviving scandals this devastating. That is a fact.

But here is another: the Olympic world is not better off for having lost Scott Blackmun. To start fresh and tackle these crucial issues anew, it might have been necessary for him to eventually go.